Main entry:

Kantor, Sybil Gordon.

Title & Author:

Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and the intellectual origins of the Museum of Modern Art / Sybil Gordon Kantor.

Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2002.

Description:

xxiii, 472 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 378-459) and index.
Prologue: Knowing Alfred Barr -- Ch. 1. The Princeton Years -- Ch. 2. The Fogg Method and Paul J. Sachs: Barr and his Harvard Mentor -- Ch. 3. Barr as Teacher, 1925 to 1927 -- Ch. 4. The Little Magazine and Modernism at Harvard -- Ch. 5. The European Trip -- Ch. 6. Modernism Takes Its Turn in America -- Ch. 7. Architecture, Barr, and Henry-Russell Hitchcock -- Ch. 8. Philip Johnson and Barr: Architecture and Design Enter the Museum -- Ch. 9. The Directorship at Full Throttle.

Summary:

Growing up with the twentieth century, Alfred Barr (1902-1981), founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, harnessed the cataclysm that was modernism. In this book--part intellectual biography, part institutional history--Sybil Gordon Kantor tells the story of the rise of modern art in America and of the man responsible for its triumph. Following the trajectory of Barr's career from the 1920s through the 1940s, Kantor penetrates the myths, both positive and negative, that surround Barr and his achievements. Barr fervently believed in an aesthetic based on the intrinsic traits of a work of art and the materials and techniques involved in its creation. Kantor shows how this formalist approach was expressed in the organizational structure of the multidepartmental museum itself, whose collections, exhibitions, and publications all expressed Barr's vision. At the same time, she shows how Barr's ability to reconcile classical objectivity and mythic irrationality allowed him to perceive modernism as an open-ended phenomenon that expanded beyond purist abstract modernism to include surrealist, nationalist, realist, and expressionist art. Drawing on interviews with Barr's contemporaries as well as on Barr's extensive correspondence, Kantor also paints vivid portraits of, among others, Jere Abbott, Katherine Dreier, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Philip Johnson, Lincoln Kirstein, Agnes Mongan, J.B. Neumann, and Paul Sachs.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents

ISBN:

0262112582 (alk. paper)
9780262112581 (alk. paper)
0262611961
9780262611961

Subject:

Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 1902-1981.
Barr, Alfred H. (Alfred Hamilton)
Barr, Alfred Hamilton, 1902-
Barr, Alfred H. 1902-1981
Barr, Alfred Hamilton (Kunsthistoriker)
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) History.
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) Histoire.
Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)
The Museum of Modern Art New York, NY
Art museum directors United States Biography.
Directeurs de musée d'art États-Unis Biographies.
Art museum directors
Geschichte
Kunstmusea.
Directeuren.
Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.)
Kunsthistorici.
Museus de arte Estados unidos.
Art, Modern 20th century.
Histoire.
Directeur de musée.
United States
Art museum directors (administrators) United States New York (State) New York 1920-1950.
Art museums United States New York (State) New York 1920-1950.
Modernist art United States New York (State) New York 1920-1950.

Form/genre:

Biography
Biographies.
History

Holdings:

Location: Library main 221144
Call No.: N620.M9 K3 2002
Status: Available